Months ago, Google Inc. (GOOG) acknowledged in a widely reported, carefully worded statement that it did scan the content of users' emails and uploaded files with scripts to develop profiles with which to better advertise to them. Surprisingly, while that report only drew mild grumbles, a new incident in which Google tipped off a child protection advocacy about a child pornography peddler is igniting a far fiercer debate over privacy.

I. Convicted Child Molester Gets Busted First by Google, Then by Cops

The incident began when Google scanned images uploaded by a Gmail user. It detected the images contained a file known to be child pornography. Google then alerted National Center for Missing and Exploited Children -- an advocacy group it works closely with. The Center -- who runs the well-known "Missing Kids" campaign, alerted authorities with the Houston Police.

Detective David Nettles of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce responded to the tip and appeared to enforce the law with utmost respect for due process. Rather than lean on warrantless search provisions, Detective Nettles filed for a search warrant against the suspect -- John Henry Skillern -- asking to search the suspect's computer, smartphone, and other devices.

After receiving the warrant, he conducted a search of Mr. Skillern's smartphone and tablet, which he did not appear to have bothered to password protect.

John Henry Skillern had already been convicted once of sexually assaulting a child. Now he was back at it again. He might have gotten away too, if it wasn't for Google. [Image Source: Webster Police/KHOU 11]

It turns outs Mr. Skillern, 41, had been down this road before. In 1994, Mr. Skillern -- then 21 -- sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy. He was later apprehended by police and registered as a sex offender. In Texas, this meant that his address -- 2400 Lidstone, Houston, TX -- was made public for all to see and beware.

In an alarming, but all too common twist, Mr. Skillern began spending much time away from his registered residence. He was reportedly living almost full time with his parents on Hickory Lane in Pasadena, Texas, roughly a 14-mile drive away. He even got a job in Pasadena, working at the local Denny's Corp. (DENN) restaurant.

The suspect worked at Denny's of Pasadena, Texas [pictured], and reportedly secretly took videos on his phone of diners' children while he pretended to work. [Image Source: Yelp]

When searching his cell phone, Detective Nettles found texts in which Mr. Skillern discussed his fantasies about young boys and girls. The detective also found disturbing video that Mr. Skillern had taken surreptitiously of the children of Denny's patents while they ate unaware. He also was found to possess child pornography -- a video of a young female child nude.

He was arrested and charged with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of promotion of child pornography. He's currently being held in the local jail on a $200,000 USD bond as he awaits trial.

II. Some are Grateful That Google Took Action

Many expressed gratitude at Google's tip. Detective Nettles said Google employees might have spared local families the pain of enduring what Mr. Skillern's first victim went through two decades ago. He comments in an interview with KHOU:

He was trying to get around getting caught, he was trying to keep it inside his email. I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can. I really don't know how they do their job. But I'm just glad they do it.

Yesenia Gonzales, a neighbor to Mr. Skillern's parents echoed this gratitude, noting that the neighbors had no idea the parent's child was a sex offender as he had not registered as living with them. She commented:

He seemed like a nice, normal man. Thank goodness for Google.

Others, though, have blasted Google for airing the child molester's dirty laundry. Federal law compels companies to report any case of child abuse or pornography they find. But it does not compel them to look for it. Google's critics contend it never should have looked at Mr. Skillern's private files.

Of course this argument is a bit odd on a couple of accounts. First, Google is a private business. While it's indeed one of the most popular email services with over 400 million users, it's not compelled to keep your email private, as you choose to do business with it and choose to abide by the contract it asks users to sign when they activate an account. In fact that contract explicitly warns:

[Google has] a zero-tolerance policy against child sexual abuse imagery. If we become aware of such content, we will report it to the appropriate authorities and may take disciplinary action, including termination, against the Google accounts of those involved.

Mr. Skillern, like all users clicked that he accepted the terms, which authorized Google to "trawl" his account (as Google's legal chief counsel David Drummond put it last year) checking to make sure it did not contain known illegal images of child abuse. Mr. Skillern breached the terms of his contract and Google's scripts caught him.

III. Internet Critics Say Google Employees Should be Sent to Prison for Protecting Children

But some are still condemning Google. "ianeassonrogerscom" went as far as suggesting that Google employees should be sent to jail for turn the child predator in after he breached Google's contract. The commenter posted on a Business Insider piece on the topic:

Google has no right to examine your email, no more than the Post Office has the right to open and examine your letters.
Despite the laudable outcome of their [Google's] illegal act, they [Google] should be charged for this and people [Google employees] should be sent to jail.

A spokesperson for Google addressed such noisy critics commenting to the Associated Press:

Sadly, all Internet companies have to deal with child sexual abuse. It’s why Google actively removes illegal imagery from our services -- including search and Gmail -- and immediately reports abuse to the NCMEC. Each child sexual abuse image is given a unique digital fingerprint which enables our systems to identify those pictures, including in Gmail.

It is important to remember that we only use this technology to identify child sexual abuse imagery -- not other email content that could be associated with criminal activity (for example using email to plot a burglary).

To Google's credit, in April it voluntarily updated its contract terms for Gmail and other services, more explicitly stating that private user data might be scanned and used to build anonymous, non-identifiable profiles to better monetize targeted ads, ads which support Google's free services.

But what makes this fresh criticism particularly whacky is that the court battle over email scanning -- perhaps a valid controversy -- was largely greeted with yawns and apathy. Now faced with a much more clear cut case of Google rightfully protecting children and holding a user to its very explicitly stated contract terms about illegal behavior, Google is finally experiencing some harsh criticisms from the peanut gallery.

IV. Past Concerns Aside, This Time Google is Entirely in the Right

It's worth emphasizing that not only does Google explicitly state it polices uploaded images and video for known files related to child abuse, it also talks about it, practically all the time.

Since 2008, we’ve used 'hashing' technology to tag known child sexual abuse images, allowing us to identify duplicate images which may exist elsewhere. ...

We’re in the business of making information widely available, but there’s certain 'information' that should never be created or found. We can do a lot to ensure it’s not available online—and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted.

The technology behind Google's checking is remarkably simple. It simply makes a hashes of all known/currently distributed child pornography images, then compares you image to it. When it comes to its abuse prevention Google doesn't look at you image or otherwise inspect your text, unless the image you're sending matches a known child porn image.

If your image matches, it then has a human in its abuse prevention teams check the message thread to rule out if you were targeted by a prank/smear effort. Only if you clearly appear to be involved does it take the next step of reporting you to NMEC for further investigation.

Admittedly Google is among the most aggressive internet firms in spending its own time, money, and resources in combatting child abuse on the internet, including across its popular platform of services. Regardless of commenters' feelings of Google and its privacy policies in general terms, the growing outrage is astounding. Rather than receiving praise for keeping children safe from a convicted child molester, Google is begin condemned for holding its users accountable when they choose to break the law and breach their contract.

Despite sexually assaulting a child, peddling child porn, and breaching his contract with Google, some critics are bizarrly outraged over Google helped catch him in the act. [Image Source: Webster Police/KHOU 11]

Google warned Mr. Skillern. If what Google and prosecutors claim is true, he reject those warnings, succumbing to his dark perversions.

Instead of heeding Google's clear and explicity warnings he chose to brazenly defy them. He'll have his day in court, but one would hope that more commenters realize that he got their due to his own stupidity, compulsiveness, and arrogance -- not due to some malice on Google's part.

"A politician stumbles over himself... Then they pick it out. They edit it. He runs the clip, and then he makes a funny face, and the whole audience has a Pavlovian response." -- Joe Scarborough on John Stewart over Jim Cramer